


(500) days of summer

by Anonymous



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Genre: Academia days, Gen, Pre-Canon, nothing to do with the movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-07-13 01:45:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7133507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <span class="small"><i>Ryou stares at the script: flourish-ridden cursive that doesn't much resemble Fubuki's usual blocky printed letters. "... We're not friends, Tenjoin."</i><br/><i>Fubuki considers that. "Yeah, I know."</i><br/><i>"So why're you writing this on my wall?"</i><br/><i>"Eh...? It was close by, and I see it often, so if there's something I want to remember it makes sense to write it there..."</i>  </span>
</p><p>Marufuji Ryou, before he was Kaiser.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I.

**Author's Note:**

> They both start in Ra Yellow cause neither of them attended Academia's feeder school, Ryou was busy on the junior pro dueling circuit and Fubuki was just kinda wasting time

 

 

 

The academic year at Duel Academia begins as summer draws to a close and it shows, students new and old arriving at Domino Pier dressed in light fabrics and open-toed shoes and the kiss of blazing sun across collarbones and in their hair. On the steamer just preparing to depart for the island when the clock strikes noon, Osiris Red freshmen loudly swapping middle school stories over the round tables up front, upperclassmen clustered in the coach seats in back, garbed alternately in yellow and blue.

Ryou had gotten there an hour early to be sure of a seat and now he shifts in his chair, leather shoes pushing against the duffel bag stowed underneath, and glances at the other nervous-looking first-years for whom it was only now sinking in that they’d have to spend the next ten months away from home. They're trying to hold conversations to the gentle sway of the boat, trying at once to ease their anxiety while still keeping up the appearance of being unbothered.

As the boat pulls away from the dock the girl sitting beside Ryou tries to strike up a conversation, but after finding out Ryou had won nationals twice already she falls into some sort of awed silence, so Ryou just goes back to reading the newspaper on his datapad. To his other side, a boy with green hair falling into his face, curled up in his seat and looking thoroughly miserable. Ryou had offered him a paper bag, which he'd gratefully taken, and now Ryou watches him out of the corner of his eye as he spends the rest of the journey with it pressed to his face. To his credit, he doesn't actually get sick.

The steamer pulls into the pier, and students spill out of the boat in every direction. Ryou retrieves his duffel from under the seat and asks the conductor for directions to the gymnasium; collects his room keys from the registration counter and begins the long trek downhill to the Ra Yellow dormitories.

 

* * *

 

 Ryou's room is on the second floor; when he gets there the door is already ajar, so he slides his keyring back into his pocket and pushes the door open. It's a moderately sized room, sparsely furnished, and someone has already claimed the top bunk—Ryou can’t see the guy's face from this angle, but he’s lying on his back and tapping at the datapad he's holding above his head. Ryou wonders how many times he's dropped the device on his face if he always uses it like that.

At the sound of Ryou’s duffel hitting the floor, that person peers over the guard rail and yanks the headphones from his ears. “Oh, hello,” he says. “I'm Tenjoin Fubuki.”

Relaxed posture, long dark hair falling loose but not untidily around his face, someone who smiles with the appearance of genuinity. Ryou remembers that Tenjoin had been sitting close to the front of the boat where the doors were, which would be why he'd managed to get up here so fast.

(He'd only noticed because Tenjoin had been one of the few still dressed in ordinary clothes instead of the Academia uniform. Furthermore—Tenjoin had been the only one who'd seemed genuinely relaxed, like all of this was nothing more than a vacation.)

Ryou replies to Tenjoin's self-introduction with his own name, and then Tenjoin hops off the top bunk and hands Ryou the datapad in his hands. “Let’s exchange numbers,” he explains quickly. “In case one of us gets locked out or something.”

So Ryou puts in his contact information and saves Tenjoin's when the latter pings him. He takes a second, closer look around the room; it's spacious enough, and sparsely furnished with two desks, two chests-of-drawers, the bunk bed against one wall, and a closet they'd have to share. Ryou crosses over to the closet; Tenjoin's things already occupy a third of the space, but they're pushed considerately to one side. Ryou pulls out clotheshangers from the side compartment of his duffel and starts hanging up his own uniforms.

“Hey, Marufuji," Tenjoin calls again. "I hope you’re not gunning for the top spot this year."

Ryou doesn't look up from transferring the contents of his bag. “—And if I am?”

“Then you’ll be disappointed, ‘cause it’s gonna be me,” Tenjoin replies. Ryou doesn't bother answering that. Tenjoin has flopped back on his bunk so Ryou can't see his face, but Ryou thinks he's grinning.

When they're both done unpacking—even in their shared closet, there is a generous amount of room left over—Tenjoin says he's going to make a round of the hall and say hi to the people just moving in. Ryou figures he'll meet everyone eventually, and goes to explore the grounds instead.

Academia is huge. Ryou has known this in theory for months, but now with the sun's heat trapped beneath the fabric of his long coat and his hair already beginning to stick to the back of his neck—he crunches distances and walking speeds in his head, concludes a minimum of ten minutes' walk from the dorm to campus every day. It'll be weather like this for a few weeks yet; he'll have to ask one of the upperclassmen how they handle all of it.

He finds his way to the Obelisk Blue compound and stops in front of the dorm gates. Behind the main dormitory, a second, smaller building Ryou guesses is the girls' compound. The front porch is as busy as moving day usually is; second-years anxiously gathered round the dorm assignment listing tacked up on one wall, senior boys crossing the field to the dueling compound, and students and the occasional concerned parent as they drag through the front doors everything from luggage bags to couches to portable closets.

 _One day_ , Ryou thinks.

Osiris Red is another considerably long walk away; it's twenty minutes before Ryou even reaches the gates, and he considers making the trek uphill to see the dorm for himself but decides otherwise. In any case, it appears that the rumours about Kaiba Seto's grudge are true after all.

His D-Pad beeps. _Hey Ryou, convocation in 15 if you wanna go_

The message is from Tenjoin, already taking liberties with forms of address. But Ryou has better things to do than to find fault with that, so he lets it slide, and is glad to find that he remembers the way back to the main compound just fine.

 

* * *

 

At the ceremony listening to the third of six opening speeches, Ryou wonders if Master Samejima remembers the boy he'd named successor to the Cyber Style six years ago. Since that time, the Master must have found many other talented duelists. Besides, he is a Professor in a duel academy now, and Ryou just another aspiring duelist. Ryou can't expect special treatment just because he'd trained in the Cyber Style before; in fact, he wouldn't have wanted it.

“... possibly you were the best duelists at your middle school clubs. Or you play for the the thrill of the duel, and you think that your bond with your cards will lead you to victory. The thing is, everyone else here also does. So you have to be better...”

For the most part Ryou isn’t worried. To him, dueling has never been a competition. The day he received Cyber End, he knew that he would never again play anything else. His junior pro league rank, and winning the East Asian Championships twice—those were only the byproducts, not the goal he was trying to achieve.

That goal, then and now, has only been respectful dueling.

Next to him, Tenjoin has kicked back in his seat and pillowed his head on his hands behind him. To the casual onlooker he cares about the headmaster's speech just about as much as everyone else in the room, which is to say not at all. But something tells Ryou that he's listening intently, too.

 

* * *

 

_Is this thing on? Testing, testing, one-two-three. Perfect._

_Stop me if you've heard this story before. There's a fourteen-year-old boy who loves to duel. He plays for the thrill of the game, and believes that his bond with his cards will lead him to victory. He is always working to to improve his strength, and he thinks he'll get good enough to challenge the King of Games himself one day._

_That's me, of course. But that's also everyone else who was in that room. Everyone here thinks they can't lose, that they're going to be the next big thing. But only the best make it to Duel Academia, and only the best of the best are going to succeed. Everyone else will just fall by the wayside. And to tell the truth, after meeting some of my new classmates—I think I'll be among those who don't make it..._

 

 

 

 


	2. II.

 

 

 

'Fall' term starts in a mad scramble of reading assignments, problem sets and project deadlines, and in every class there's inevitably someone who arrives half an hour late disheveled and out of breath with groveling apologies that make Fubuki wince sympathetically and Ryou glad he'd taken a day to learn the lay of the land before classes began.

Ryou adapts just fine, on the account of good time management habits and study strategies that he'd picked up trying to finish junior high while on the dueling circuit. He has his weekly schedule blocked out in colours and taped to the foot of his bed; finishes assigned reading and homework the day it's announced, and any minute not in class, at meals or asleep he's in the library or the practice arenas trying to up his game. In general, he gives the impression of 'someone who takes his schooling seriously'.

Tenjoin, on the other hand, doesn't care at all.

Ryou has never seen him take a single note in class-- he gives the appearance of listening well enough, but when he has pen poised over paper he's usually doodling, not writing down anything from the slides or that the teacher is saying. The instant the bell sounds he's out the door, chasing down some friend or acquaintance from another dorm, and during the time outside the school day he shuns the library for socials and mixers and term's-first meetings for every club in school.

Ryou thinks Tenjoin  must be packing serious intelligence anyway, because he aces all the in-class quizzes without apparently studying very much. "I pay attention in class," he says, when people ask.

 

* * *

 

_It's strange, but I haven't really thought about dueling much since I got here. It's been so—busy—learning my way around and finding out what's happening and where, and meeting Ryou and Yusuke and Chousaku and the others. Still, once practicum actually starts, dueling is probably going to be all I can think about..._

 

* * *

 

By the third week of classes Fujiwara Yusuke's roommate has already had a stress-induced breakdown and gone home. Ryou remembers that boy—he had barely survived the entrance duel, and rumour says he'd only been admitted to the school after much persistent cajoling from his parents. It should have been obvious from the start that he wouldn't make it. Yusuke himself had seemed shaken, but now that he has a room to himself, seems to have no qualms about shutting himself up in it almost all the time.

Ryou himself has collected a small pile of notecards organized by subject and separated with coloured paperclips, and gotten a pair of those over-ear headphones so he won’t have to put up with Fubuki’s techno music. Fubuki takes 'organized mess' to new heights, but he’s actually fairly good at keeping his stack of textbooks, readings and looseleaf paper from spilling off his desk and the pile of clothes next to his dresser from crossing the invisible line down the center of the room; he's fond of snacks that come in crinkly packets, but he cleans up after himself and doesn't leave food out in the open.

All in all, the situation is better than Ryou had feared it might have been. As to the rest—Ryou thinks—he can handle that.

 

* * *

 

 _Philia_ , Fubuki writes on the wall next to Ryou's bunk in permanent marker. _Platonic love between friends_. "You could say it's more valuable than family or romance, because it's something you choose to have, and have to work hard to keep."

Ryou stares at the script: flourish-ridden cursive that doesn't much resemble Fubuki's usual blocky printed letters. "...We're not friends, Tenjoin."

Fubuki considers that. "Yeah, I know."

"So why're you writing this on my wall?"

"Eh...? It was close by, and I see it often, so if there's something I want to remember it makes sense to write it there. Also, you don't have friends...."

 

* * *

 

Sixth week of classes and second week of September, Fubuki drags Ryou to an Obelisk Blue mixer and introduces him to a girl he vaguely recognises from fortnightly round robins at the Osiris dorms. She runs a strong archetype with very good support, but never takes the risks that make her spell card chaining strategies effective—

Fubuki coughs pointedly and kicks Ryou in the shins.

“—you look nice, Serena,” Ryou says. She blushes and thanks him, and then drags him off to the dance floor. Later, when they've gotten in tune enough with each other to be able to move together without much effort, Ryou scans the crowd for Fubuki's long dark hair so he can tell him off later for shoving him into that sort of situation. He's standing to one saide saying something to Fujiwara, and smiles and waves when he catches sight of Ryou looking in their direction.

 

* * *

 

The results of their first level-wide examinations are put up on the notice board, colour-coded by dorm, and Ryou discovers he’s right—their room assignments correspond almost exactly to their class rank. He's ranked 21st, barely in the top half of Ra Yellow; Yusuke's name is two rows above his own, and Fubuki's is one below. The Manjoume twins are in positions one and two, of course.

21st is a good rank for a first-year Ra Yellow, but Ryou can’t shake the feeling that he has to do _better_. On the other side of the noticeboard, Fubuki is high-fiving Yusuke and making plans to go out for dinner.

 

* * *

 

Ryou puts in a request to use the Obelisk Blue practice rooms, and gets a pass on account of his good grades. Tonight Manjoume Chousaku is dueling an Osiris Red third-year, and Ryou has both his notebook out and a spreadsheet open on his datapad when Fubuki drops into the seat next to his own with a bowl of popcorn.

"I got a pass, just like you," he replies to Ryou's unspoken question.

The duel begins on a strong first turn with both duelists fusion summoning, and Ryou makes play-by-play notes; later he'll analyze them for offensive and defensive strategies as well as consistencies with both duelists' other matches. One day, Ryou will be the one who duels Manjoume Chousaku, and when he does, he wants to be the one who wins.

Fubuki looks over at him and snorts. “Dueling’s s’posed to be fun, Marufuji,” he says, and offers Ryou the popcorn bowl. He's not taking notes, and has kicked back in his seat like this is all just a wonderful evening's entertainment. But Ryou thinks he's also following the duel as intently as Ryou himself is.

 

* * *

 

_Ludus: love that is a game. The defining characteristic of the ludic relationship is fun, enjoyment and challenge, where the object of affection is a conquest to be won through strategic means..._

Ryou scrolls through the end of the message and then hits delete. "Tenjoin, why exactly did you deem it necessary to send this—inanity—to the class list?"

Fubuki doesn't look up from his damage calculations or bother to deny it. "To make sure everyone sees it, of course. So there's this this guy, Sorano if you know him—"

"Obelisk Blue, second row, third from left in Chronos' class?" Yuusuke says, chewing on the end of his pencil.

"—yeah, that's him, you wouldn't know he was Obelisk Blue the way he duels—anyway, he's dueling his crush tomorrow and needed an excuse to ask her out after..."

Ryou promptly tunes out of the rest of the conversation; it's none of his business, he couldn't care less, and he has another ten practice problems to get through before the library closes for the night.

 

* * *

 

Fubuki is weirdly intent on finding Ryou a girlfriend. ... To be fair to the guy, he's weirdly intent on pairing up everyone in their year, but Ryou's the one who's rooming with him so he thinks he's justified in saying he gets the worst of it.

_You know, Ryou, you'll never find love if you go around all serious like that_

It's the fifth time this week that Fubuki has chosen to break the silence in their shared room with something like that and Ryou is really, really done dealing with things like this while the offender is also taking up an obnoxious amount of space on the bunk that isn't even his, so he flips the question: _If you know so much about this thing called romance, then why don't_ you _have a girlfriend?_

Fubuki rolls over to face Ryou with a shit-eating grin and probably some witty quip on the tip of his tongue, but then he sees Ryou's expression and seems to change his mind. "I want to focus on dueling first," he says, and it's so unusually serious for someone like him that Ryou has to believe it.

"—and that is why you should totally help me play matchmaker, because if everyone is shoving their tongues down each other's throats behind the bushes at the Academia gates then they won't study for the tests and you'll blow them all out of the water—"

The shit-eating grin is back, so Fubuki is probably not being serious.

... Probably.

 

 


	3. III.

 

 

October arrives, bringing with it early sunsets and the first cool weather all year; the girls start donning jackets and tights under their uniforms, and the daily trek to campus grows more leisurely now the sun no longer makes pot roast of them all.

Fubuki celebrates his fifteenth birthday at the Obelisk Blue Halloween social, and there's drinks and dancing at the afterparty. Fubuki enjoys himself a little too much; Ryou has moderate success at staying out of the way until Yuusuke hands him a glass of something warm and yellow and fizzy and shoves him into the mingling crowd.

Ryou turns fifteen on the first of November the next day,  but he hasn't said anything to anyone and he doesn't intend to. He's never been one to fuss around for things like birthdays or festivals; it's just a day like any other, and he's resolute that it will not be anything out of the ordinary.

It's far too early in the morning when they get back to the dorms, and Fubuki no longer seems capable of telling his keys apart so Ryou has to let them in first the front door and then their room. Ryou waves him in and then walks into the doorframe instead of through the door; swears louder than he intended to, and is immensely glad the hall monitor lives on the other end of the long corridor.

The next morning Ryou wakes to the sound of his alarm with a splitting headache, and notices with more than a little annoyance that the blinds are already open and sunlight is streaming into the room. His head is pounding, likely from the lack of sleep and the events of the night before.

Fubuki is already up, and is sitting at his desk reading something on his datapad. It's unexpected to see him up this early; usually on weekends he sleeps in till noon at the earliest, and he can't have gotten more than three hours of sleep either.

"Hey, Ryou," he says before Ryou has a chance to react, far too cheerily for eight a.m. on Saturday morning, and leans over the back of his chair and hands Ryou a cup of water. "Happy birthday. You didn't say anything?"

"I don't see the point of making a big deal out of it," Ryou replies automatically. He takes the water and downs it gratefully. "Thanks."

"It's an excuse to say and do things you usually don't," Fubuki says, and leans over one more time to pop a funny hat on Ryou's head and open a streamer in Ryou's face before going back to whatever he's doing on his datapad.

Truth be told— Ryou doesn't even know how Fubuki found this out. He thinks he doesn't want to know either.

At any rate, he's going back to bed.

 

* * *

 

That evening Ryou finds Fubuki at the pier by the lighthouse, talking quietly into his hand. As he sees Ryou coming, he shuts off the audio recorder and puts it away. "Just recording the memories of my academy life," he says, and then he turns to face the sea, and closes his eyes against the wind that passes by. Hands in his coat pockets, the sea-wind lifting the tails of his coat and the hair from his shoulders. Ryou likes to pull his hair back at duel practice so it doesn't get in his face; Fubuki never does.

"Striking image, isn't it?" Fubuki opens his eyes. Ryou doesn't know how Fubuki even knew he was looking. "You should try it sometime, Ryou. I never even knew before coming here, but girls love that stuff..."

But then he turns and meets Ryou's eyes and something about that makes him falls uncharacteristically silent, so Ryou doesn't bother with a reply.

_Fifteen, huh._

 

* * *

 

_School is someplace you're not expected to already be perfect. You're here to learn and grow and change. You can make mistakes and be forgiven._

_Still, I can't help but think— there are some things you really can't come back from, aren't there..._

 

* * *

 

 

 

That night, staring at the metal grille supporting the mattress above, Ryou finds that sleep doesn't come; he's remembering that lighthouse on that pier, and dark and endless water and the sky above the horizon full of stars.

All along, Ryou thought of the Academia is just another stepping stone on the way to the pro leagues, a necessary halfway house where he could gain the knowledge and experience needed to succeed in that place he really wanted to go. Since leaving the Cyber Dojo he has focused on only one goal: to enroll in Duel Academy, and go into the pro leagues. Just carrying out the duel to the best of his ability, and knowing that he has conducted it with honor and respect, is sufficient.

Ryou hasn't thought about these things in a long time. He hasn't had time to, now that every waking moment is filled with class and work and duel after duel in the practice room during the precious once-weekly hour slot every Ra Yellow student gets; now he's forced to talk to other people to solve problems he can't do alone, and those other people actually answer him.  Ryou is used to fending for himself, to having to explain himself; here, he could just say what he thought and the other person would know what he meant. He can't sit at library tables alone any more because there just aren't enough to go around. Meals are no longer a solitary pursuit, and take twice as long as it did before now that he sits across from Yuusuke doing tarot readings and Fubuki dispensing terrible romantic advice over beans and fried potatoes.

_When did this—?_

Above him, the faint creak of cheap bedsprings as Fubuki shifts in his sleep, Ryou can finally put a name to it: a sense of belonging.

Still, he shouldn't get too comfortable. It's not like he wants to stay here forever, and when he leaves this place for the pro leagues, it'll be everyone for themselves again.

  


* * *

 

  
"Storge," Fubuki says. "Love that grows from familiarity--"

"Don't read that stuff to me," Ryou says, automatically reaching for his headphones. "Post it on that blog of yours or whatever it is."

Fubuki's on the editorial board of the school gossip rag; he runs the advice column and it got so successful he started a spin-off blog. He's insufferable every time somebody inboxes him a success story of romantic conquest and gives him the credit.

"It's easier to catch mistakes in your drafts if you read it out loud," Fubuki replies. "C'mon, hear me out. Based on trust and long-term commitment, often grows out of friendship—"

In the beginning Ryou had tried to puzzle out everything Fubuki said that he didn't understand, but now he doesn't bother anymore, because he knows that Fubuki is the kind of person who says nonsensical things. So he puts on his headphones and drowns out Fubuki's voice with the sound of some pop singer crooning, and gets back to his work.

 

* * *

 

  
School dorms are far from ideal when it comes to housing conditions. Ryou prefers to turn a blind eye to the mistakes and weaknesses of others— and if he has weaknesses of his own, then he prefers to keep them in his head where no one can find them.  
  
Fubuki doesn't passcode-lock his datapad.

Ryou discovers this when one morning Fubuki forgets it on the floor when he leaves for class, and Ryou mistakes it for his own and hit the home button that would usually bring up his lock screen. Instead it brings up the last application Fubuki left open, which is— well. A file explorer.

There's no regularity at all in the content of the videos, no significant variations in the number of replays, and all the videos are haphazardly but thoroughly tagged. In fact, Ryou would have said it looked more like a library collection than a porn stash. And then he groans internally because a lending library of things like that is _exactly_ what Fubuki would have.  
  
He's still paging through the file records with a sort of sick fascination when he hears the key turn in the door. "Hey, Ryou, have you seen my—"

Between Ryou's expression and his missing datapad in Ryou's hands, Fubuki seems to figure out what he left open on his screen.

He blinks. If he's fazed, he's doing a good job hiding it. "Oh, give it back," he says, and Ryou has the decency to close every window he's opened before handing the datapad over, and there's an unspoken agreement to never talk about it again.

 

 


	4. IV.

 

 

One week into March, Fubuki says, "Do you know why I hate the end of rainy season."

"Because you don't get to wear your coats any more?" Ryou has heard the Obelisk Blue girls giggling over the dashing figure Fubuki cuts in them.

"I meant aside from the obvious," Fubuki sighs. "Eh, you'll find out soon enough..."

Two weeks later when springtime arrives Ryou does find out what that cryptic comment meant, because it turns out that Fubuki gets terrible hay fever. It is actually physically painful for Ryou to be in the vicinity of someone who is suffering this much. But Ryou can't do anything to help besides take detailed notes in class, and empty the trash bin in their room when it overflows with tissues, and bring Fubuki soup from the mess hall on the days when he curls miserably up under his sheets and refuses to move.

"That's already more than anyone has ever done for me," Fubuki says, making an exaggerated pout, and Ryou can't decide whether to just leave, or empty the rest of the thermos over Fubuki's head and then leave.

 

* * *

 

The results of their preliminary examinations go up on the noticeboard, and Ryou sees with satisfaction that his grades land him squarely in the ranks of students likely to be promoted to Obelisk Blue. Then he reads the rest of the names, and notices that Fubuki isn't among them.

"I didn't study," Fubuki says later in Unified Duel Theory. He's not looking at Ryou. "Busy with other things. You know how it is."

Something in Ryou goes cold. "I thought you wanted this, Tenjoin."

“Maybe it’s too much work to be at the top,” Fubuki says, in that flippant voice that makes it impossible to tell if he's being serious. “I’m happy with what I have now, you know?”

 

* * *

 

_Ryou, I'm glad I got to meet you._

_In this place, there are people like Habara Umimi who have to learn to duel because it's part of their stage act, or Amon Garam or the Manjoume twins, who have to learn to duel to protect their business empires._

_The pro leagues, for the rest of us, are just that— a dream. And every day we stay here, we know that dream is getting farther away. And to be quite honest, I've never actually given any thought to what I would do if I don't end up doing that after all. I think that's true for a lot of us here._

_But someone like you, I'm sure you'll make it to the pro leagues. Ryou._

 

* * *

 

School breaks for two weeks before the term tests, and Ryou promptly crashes for a whole day to catch up on all the sleep he'd lost during the term. "Sleep debt doesn't work that way," Yuusuke says. Ryou ignores him.

For the rest of that fortnight, Ryou sneaks into the Obelisk Blue practice rooms every day after hours to train against the computer simulations. When an Obelisk Blue student catches him at it, he points out that she's trying to do the exact same thing and that it might benefit both of them to keep quiet about all of it and duel each other instead. He's actually surprised that he has apparently gained enough of a reputation that she accepts the challenge. They spar every night for a week, and Ryou comes out of that time of his life with a profound respect for Kaiba Seto and his Blue-Eyes White Dragons.

Ryou doesn't see much of Fubuki; the guy sleeps through the morning, gets up while Ryou's out, and doesn't come back until after Ryou's gone to bed. But the mess of papers and stationery on his desk is arranged differently each time Ryou wakes up, so he must spend some time here at least.

The night before the summoning theory exam Ryou's sprawled over his bed running through his flashcards when he hears the key turn in the lock and the door open. Fubuki stumbles through the door, throws down his backpack and coat against the wall, and then notices Ryou's nightlight.

"Oh— sorry, Ryou, did I wake you," he says.

"No," Ryou replies, and jerks his head at the notes scattered over his bedspread. "I was still..."

Fubuki blinks, rubs at his eyes. "Alright then." He climbs up to his own bunk bed still fully dressed. "Good luck tomorrow, Ryou."

"You too."

Ryou tries to get back to his flashcards, flips through the entire deck without really seeing them, and nothing sticks. He raises one hand to tap at the metal grille above his head; not too loudly, in case Fubuki has already fallen asleep. "Fubuki—"

No answer. Ryou puts away his flashcards and turns out his own light.

 

The next morning Fubuki slips into the examination hall five minutes late, takes his seat with a scrape of his chair and a muttered apology.

It goes on like this all week. Ryou thinks he should probably show more concern, but he's never been someone that people go to to tell their troubles to. In any case, Fubuki can probably handle it.

 

* * *

 

 _Agape_ , Ryou reads, is _the love for all things, not out of a desirable characteristic or deeds they have done, but born out of the mere fact that they exist_. Yuusuke cranes his neck to see what Ryou's reading under the desk, and snorts. "Even the great Marufuji Ryou drinks the Tenjoin kool-aid, I see."

It's not worth trying to defend himself, so Ryou just ignores it and continues reading. He only has one test left and it's practicum, so he isn't too worried.

Even in the middle of exam season, Fubuki keeps up with his askbox. The questions he's answering now reflect the stressful time: people are asking about exam prep tips, coping strategies, or what to do on a study marathon with someone they like.

_You're so cool, Master of Love. Are you a guy or a girl?_

A girl, of course. Only girls know girls' hearts that well.  
_No, I think it's a guy. He knows how to be suave.  
_ Does it matter? Even if they turn out to be a sea slug...

Ryou thinks Fubuki wouldn't have nearly as large a following if more people knew the blog was being run by a first-year who likes to talk out of his ass. But people seem to be placated and entertained by the answers at least.

(Ryou doesn't know why Fubuki's still doing things like these when he should be studying, either. But Fubuki's always been someone who does what he wants to.)

 

* * *

 

Exam results get posted to the noticeboard board on the last day of term, and Ryou doesn't bother joining the anxious crowd; there will be time later in the day before the shuttle leaves, and he's not in a hurry to see how he's done. Even if he somehow did far worse than anticipated on the tests, his semester grades were already good enough that he won't get held back.

There's the familiar sound of a key in the lock and the door swinging open, and then Ryou finds himself hit with a flying tackle. "I made it, Ryou, I'm getting promoted to Obelisk Blue..."

Ryou manages to drop the three things he has in his hands on the floor. Fubuki's excitedly going on about approximately five million topics at once, from the list of promotes to the electives he's considering taking to the renovations planned for the Obelisk Blue dueling arena. It's all Ryou can do to keep up, and then Fubuki suddenly lets him go and steps back and apologises with a sheepish smile on his face and Ryou finds himself smiling, too.

"Congrats," Ryou says, and Fubuki grins wide and thanks him and then he's gone, likely to go bother someone else, leaving Ryou to stare at the empty space where he'd stood before.

 

 


	5. Summer.

 

 

 

 

Home is—

—that place where there was always the feeling that he should be somewhere else. His father, who works two dead-end jobs fourteen hours a day and and asks him when he will give up his pipe dream and start studying properly; his mother who has never demanded anything of him and only knows how to say "you shouldn't push yourself so hard, Ryou"; his younger brother who claims to want to be a duelist too but who never bothers to improve his skills. The minute he steps into the house he remembers why he needed to leave.

Ryou spends his time between the Domino University library and the arcade where Kaiba Corporation sponsors a dueling arena, alternately spectating matches and playing his own. Mostly he wins effortlessly, but there is the occasional Rintama High punk or someone from the University's casual dueling club who will give him a run for his money.

About a third of the way through the summer Shou comes up to him and asks him to spectate a duel; he agrees, watches, takes notes, and then quickly shuts down Shou’s frankly inept use of Power Bond and seals the card on his behalf. It’s fine to fool around like that in a casual duel with someone you know, when there’s not much at stake, but you have to know what you’re doing if you want to be _good_.

He doesn’t miss the fractured look on Shou’s face, or that for the remainder of his stay Shou doesn't ask him to watch a duel again. But what he is doing—it’s for Shou’s own good. It’s a lesson Shou needs to learn if he’s ever going to make it to Duel Academia like he always said he wanted to.

Ryou sets up a meeting with the other co-chairs of the junior high dueling club, who'd both gone to a local university-prep high school. All three of them had been roughly on the same level of dueling skill before, but now Ryou beats them easily. It must have gotten under their skin, because their parting words were _just because you go to duelling school doesn’t mean you’re any better than we are._

The thing is—the thing is. Ryou realises, he _is_ better. And if something like family or friendship is going to get in the way of that, then it's something he can do without. It’s the first time he realises just how much he’s prepared to sacrifice if it means that he can get stronger.

That summer he gets a total of two texts from Fubuki: once when Fubuki gets home, just to gloat over how much closer he lives to Academia than Ryou, and the second time when Fubuki gets back to Japan from his family vacation. Seeing that awkwardly angled photograph of him in that trademark Hawaiian shirt, smiling into the camera with the beach and the blue sky in the background—Ryou thinks, that guy probably had a lot of fun.

Himself, he just looks forward to going back to Academia again.

 

 

 

 


	6. V.

 

 

 

 

Ryou runs into the other Ra Yellow second-year promotes almost immediately after getting off the shuttle steamer and they make the long trek up from the pier together, swapping souvenirs and stories. At the gymnasium Ryou breaks from the group and heads to the Obelisk Blue station; the rooming assignments of all the Ra Yellow promotes are still clustered together since their class ranks are still about the same. At check-in Ryou finds that he and Fubuki have been assigned together again, and Yuusuke is in the room one over.

After unpacking his things Ryou finds Fubuki by the lighthouse, leading what looks like a new crop of first-years on a tour of Duel Academia. At the forefront of the group he recognises the Manjoume twins’ youngest brother Jun, and a very pretty girl who bears more than a passing resemblance to Fubuki himself.

“You never said Asuka was coming to Duel Academy,” he says later.

Fubuki groans and punches his arm. “I didn't say because I didn't want you to get ideas, Marufuji...”

 

* * *

 

Asuka effortlessly makes top grades in both theory and practicum. It's unsurprising— she's as sharp as Fubuki is and works twice as hard, and from the effortless way she handles her Cyber Angels, she must have been dueling seriously long before she applied to the Academy.

Ryou does ask her out, about a third of the way into the semester after he’s secured his position in the academic rankings and she’s had a chance to settle down. That same evening Fubuki hands him a long list of music, books and movies Asuka likes and then threatens to break both his legs if he tries anything. It turns out Fubuki needn’t have worried, because he and Asuka end up hotly debating the strengths and weaknesses of the Cyber archetype over dinner. He's comfortable with her in a way he isn't with many people, and she doesn't seem to expect anything of him, which is refreshing.

“Did you even bring flowers," Fubuki says later that night, when they're both elbows deep in the problem sets for that weekend.

“No," Ryou says. In retrospect, perhaps he should have? "—We do have a practice duel lined up two days from now?”

"I rest my case," Fubuki says. But he's smiling. "Hey, Ryou. Be good to her, you got that?"

 

* * *

 

 

They take a week off school to represent Academia at a tournament in Maiami City, and it’s four in the morning when the steamer arrives back at Duel Academia. Fubuki passes out on top of his sheets, not even bothering to take off his shoes; Ryou manages to stay conscious just long enough to change into clean clothes, and aims the old ones for the laundry basket but is asleep before he can see if he landed the shot.

Neither of them remember to set their alarm that morning, so they miss the first lecture of the day, and then Fubuki remembers belatedly that today is the day a very big problem set is being assigned so they run all the way across campus to the lecture hall while Ryou fires off a mass text to the class list asking about the homework. A few minutes later, his datapad beeps. _Chronos left the problems on the board. LOL._

Thankfully the student on whiteboard cleaning duty decided to shirk that day; Fubuki copies the first three problems and Ryou the last two, and then they dash off to their next class and neither of them think very much more of it.

Until the weekend when they finally start working on it.

“How can this be _homework?”_ Fubuki groans.

“Stop whining and find me a Level 5 Winged Beast with between 1800 and 2300 atk.”

“Assault Blackwing Kunai, Assault Blackwing Sohaya, Blackwing Boreas, Blackwing Brisote, Blackwing Hillen..."

“That don't break Battle City rules," Ryou snaps.

The first four problems in the set are standard if tedious, but the last is far more complicated than anything else they've encountered in any of their classes. At first Ryou had just put it up to Chronos' idiosyncracies, but now Ryou is starting to think he's missed something, since nobody else in the entire school seems to be panicking. Maybe Chronos mentioned the solution the day they missed class or something similarly inane like that. But it's too late to worry about that now. At any rate, Fubuki's stooped to the level of calling in favours he's owed, but either nobody's checking their datapads at 2:38 on a Monday morning or else the rest of the campus is content to let them suffer.

Fubuki runs simulated trials on his datapad, and Ryou draws and prunes decision trees to try to narrow down the range of cards that could possibly be used in a one turn kill against the defunct God Cards that were banned under all rulesets more than five years ago. Fubuki searches the Academia’s archive end to end, then spends another half hour paging through Domino City's tournament records before he finds a mention of a card called Devil’s Sanctuary in an old press release by the Kaiba Corporation. He spins the datapad around to show Ryou. "Could work, you think?"

Ryou scans the card description quickly. "Could work," he echoes, although at this point it's more out of instinct than any rigorously analytical decision. He's so exhausted his vision is swimming, and from the way Fubuki draws a hand across his eyes before pulling the datapad back towards himself to change the settings, Ryou thinks he's suffering equally.

"Ryou, you think this is gonna—"

"I hope so."

"Me too. I dunno. Something like Devil's Sanctuary doesn't fit with the rest of this deck. But if this doesn't work I'm just gonna—"

Ryou leans back in his chair and lets the sound of Fubuki's voice drift over him. Fubuki's tendency to ramble, and to make those leaps of logic that don't actually make sense if one were to put them down on paper— it's the same sort of intuition that lets him effortlessly absorb information from class without having to take notes because it fits in perfectly among the dense network of facts and associations he'd built up over the years. It's easy to dismiss Fubuki as someone whose words aren't really worth listening to. But he also came to Duel Academia, so he must care about dueling just as much a the rest of them, too...

"Hey, Ryou. _Ryou_."

Fubuki tosses over the datapad where "WIN" flashes across the screen in red letters, and then punches the air so hard he overbalances and lands in a heap on the floor. As he picks himself up and scribbles something down on an empty line of his answer sheet, he doesn't even seem to mind. "We got it, Ryou. We got it."

Fubuki is warm, and his hair smells nice, and his hug is so tight that Ryou can't really breathe, but it's fine, they got the homework done and his perfect grade isn't in danger any more and it's actually quite comfortable like this and everything is fine.

"... Did you really just fall asleep on me?"

Ryou's vaguely aware of being half-carried, half-dragged across the room to his bunk; a hand over his forehead, and then the lights go out and he falls immediately asleep.

The next morning they stagger into lecture ten minutes late but with solution in hand, and the eyes of the entire lecture hall are on them as they walk to the podium to turn it in. Chronos scans the sheet, and then looks back at them. Probably judging the circles under their eyes or their crumpled clothes or the state of their hair and gloating over having finally stumped the two brightest students in the class. But—

That wasn't a homework problem, Chronos says. It’s the missing last turn of the final duel between Marik Ishtar and Mutou Yuugi in the Battle City Tournament ten years ago, of which no records had ever been found, and which no duelist or analyst has ever been able to solve.

They become famous overnight.

 

* * *

 

 

"Manjoume-kun asked me out today," Asuka says.

"Chousaku?"

"Jun."

"Oh. What did you tell him?"

Ryou hasn't met the Manjoume twins' youngest brother in person, but he's occasionally passed the boy on the grounds and in corridors. The uniform cuts him an arrogant and striking figure, but he hasn't fully mastered the gravitas that's needed to back up the impression of strength and seriousness he's trying to project.

"I said no. —Should I have, " Asuka replies.

It doesn't sound like a question, but she also seems to be waiting for his answer. _I don't know_ , Ryou thinks. "If you wanted to...?"

Later, Asuka thanks him for looking out for her and says they should probably stop meeting like this, and Ryou immediately senses he's made some kind of mistake but is honestly not quite sure what it is.

The next day at the beginning of class Fubuki crosses the room in view of everyone, clocks Ryou square in the face,  and stalks off back to his seat without a word. Ryou thinks he probably deserves it. Explaining to concerned bystanders how he got blood all over his clothes turns out to be more frustrating than the bloody nose itself. Ryou isn't sure that wasn't Fubuki's intention from the start.

 

* * *

 

 

"This is about Asuka, isn't it?"

"You dare say her name," Fubuki replies without looking up.

"Actually, I just talked to her a few minutes ago," Ryou says. "I apologised for what I said, and for any misunderstanding that happened yesterday or over the last three weeks. We both know where we stand and we are both fine with it. Now— are you okay with that?"

Fubuki's been checking something on his datapad the whole time Ryou was speaking, and now he finally raises his head to look Ryou in the eye. "Okay," he says, and quirks an odd smile before going back to his work.

Technically, nothing actually has changed. But the tension in the air has gone, and to Ryou that's more relieving than it strictly ought to be.

 

* * *

 

 

"Pragma. Love driven by the head, not the heart; rational, realistic, based on utility and the fulfilment of expectations. Doesn't that sound like you, Ryou?"

Without looking up Ryou throws his pencil in the general direction of Fubuki's voice, and takes the sound of it hitting a wall as an indication that Fubuki had ducked.

—In any case, Fubuki is wrong, because generally speaking Ryou acts more on intuition instead of any explicit cost-benefit analysis.

(And if Fubuki comes around and snaps a picture of Ryou's math homework and it gets passed around all the Obelisk Blue chat groups for the next two hours— Ryou doesn't know anything about that at all and he definitely wasn't checking.)

 

 

 


	7. VI.

 

 

 

"I love you, you know," Fubuki says, out of nowhere.

Ryou's first thought is to wonder who Fubuki is talking to, but there are only two pairs of shoes beside the door. Fubuki had come back in after Ryou himself had, and he'd been alone then, and as far as Ryou can tell they're still the only ones in the room.

"It's like— the way we live here, you know, you don't spend that much time around someone without learning a lot about who they are. The passion you have when you're dueling. And you're so serious, all the time. You rarely ever smile, and never for me, but that makes it all the more precious, you know? For a long time, all I've wanted is for you to smile for me. Actually, I want to be the one to make you smile. — So I guess what I want to know is, would you consider going out with me?"

A long moment of silence, and then Ryou raises one hand to tap at the metal grille above his head that supports the mattress on the top bunk and thinks about saying, _Fubuki—_

"— no problem, man, any time. And good luck."

There's the click of a chat connection being closed, and then Fubuki climbs down the ladder and flops over Ryou's bunk. He's got his headphones plugged in to his datapad, and from the short glance Ryou gets at the screen, he's just gotten out of a video call.

"Whoa," Fubuki begins, "So Mokeo, right, you know he's liked Junko for the longest time, and he just found out she likes romantic gestures like in the old plays or something so he got the idea of serenading her under the balcony. But, get this, he doesn't actually _know_ any poetry and then she was already standing at the Obelisk Blue dorm windows with a crowd of her friends there and he flipped out and called _me_ so I..." He gestures at nothing in particular. "That felt so wrong. I hardly even know her, I can't believe I said all those things."

It's all Ryou can do to keep a straight face. "Was a good speech. Could've fooled me."

"Thanks, man!" Fubuki has managed to make himself comfortable at the foot of Ryou's bed; he's closed his eyes and doesn't show any signs of moving, so Ryou just scoots over to make room and keeps working.

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes when they walk together down the dorm hall, Fubuki will stop outside room 312 and turn to the door as if to knock. But it's always closed, and there isn't light filtering out from under it, and there are no name placards attached to the frame. There's nothing of interest there, so Ryou always wonders why Fubuki pays so much attention to it.

"Didn't someone use to—"  


"No...? That room's always been empty," Ryou will reply.

And then Fubuki will wave it off and follow Ryou down the hall, but he's always uncharacteristically quiet for the rest of the walk up to campus.

 

* * *

 

"The next question," says Duel Academia's radio DJ, "is for our very own Tenjoin Fubuki, who runs the popular blog Aishiteimasu, in other words, _I Love You_. So, Tenjoin-kun, or should I say, "Master of Love", the question for you is— On your blog, you write about the many different kinds of love and their meanings and demonstrations. But what about your personal opinion? To you, personally, what is this thing called love?"

"Ah, my personal opinion? That's a good question." Fubuki says into his phone without missing a beat. "I would say, if you were to ask me, what is love— _baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more..._ "

He covers the speaker on his phone with his hand, turns around, and shoots Ryou a blinding grin. Two seconds later it's played back over the radio, and Ryou's reluctantly impressed that even on air, his voice is perfectly on key.

 

* * *

 

Fubuki opens his blog inbox and finds a suicide threat.

It's from someone who's been recently jilted, threatening to kill himself by walking into the pond bordering the forest.

Ryou points out that the water is no more than knee deep.

Fubuki points out that it's enough to drown yourself if you really, really want to.

... Fair enough.

Fubuki points out that he has no idea who this person is, or what they were trying to achieve, or why they didn't put this in their girlfriend's or boyfriend's or literally anyone else but Fubuki's inbox, and what exactly do they expect him to do with something like this—

—and then scrolls right down to the bottom of the submission and tags it "mania: obsessive, tempestuous love" and hits publish.

Ryou stares.

"... What have I _done_ ," Fubuki says as he stares at his own screen in despair, and Ryou almost replies with _How long a list would you like_ but there's really no point talking to Fubuki when he's like this.

Right then both their datapads beep. Ryou gets to his first. It's a ping to the Obelisk Blue chat group, apparently from the girl responsible for the jilting confessing that she regrets that decision just as much and can't they talk it out or something—

Fubuki leans over backwards to pick up his datapad from Ryou's bed, fires off a series of texts with his knuckles in his mouth and squints at the screen when the replies roll in. "That... worked out," he says, uncharacteristically ineloquent.

Ryou just shrugs.

 

* * *

 

"Be back in a bit," Fubuki says, one afternoon. "Chousaku and the rest are going to check out that weirdness on the third floor."

“The thing Daitokuji-sensei asked you to check? —Strange request, that."

Fubuki shrugs. “Academia’s been strange lately.” He slides his deck into the card case at his hip and picks up his backpack in one smooth movement as he straightens.

Something about the whole setup makes Ryou want to tell him no, makes Ryou want to cross the room and take Fubuki by the shoulders, position himself between Fubuki and the doorway and push the door closed, let it click shut behind both of them and—

(— and what?)

Ryou doesn’t do it, or say anything, and then the moment's gone.

“Later, Marufuji.” Fubuki throws his backpack over his shoulder, shoots Ryou a blinding smile and heads out the door.

He never returns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. [This vid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPaMX2TIjVQ) is responsible for everything.


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